Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World (original) (raw)

Toward a Roman Dialect of Empire Anatomies of Roman Imperial Government This, then, is the lay of the different parts of our inhabited world; but since the Romans occupy the best and the best-known portions of it, having surpassed all former rulers of whom we have record, it is worthwhile, even though briefly, to add the following account of them. .. Of this whole country that is subject to the Romans, some is indeed ruled by kings, but the Romans retain the other part, calling it "provincial" (eparchian), and send governors (hēgemonas) and collectors of tribute (phorologous). But there are also some free cities, some of which came over to the Romans at the outset as friends, whereas others were set free by them as a mark of honour. There are also some potentates and phylarchs and priests subject to them. Now these live in accordance with certain ancestral laws. But the provinces have been divided in different ways at different times, though at the present time they are as Augustus Caesar (Kaisar ho Sebastos) arranged them; for when his native land committed to him the foremost place of authority and he became established as lord for life of war and peace, he divided the whole land into two parts, and assigned one portion to himself and one to the people. Strabo, Geography , , -, Loeb tr. H. L. Jones with minor adaptations There are many ways of starting a conversation about empire and political cultures in the Roman world. Modern accounts of the Roman empire have traditionally begun where the early Imperial  geographer, Strabo, writing between the s  and the s  with a perspective that zooms impressively between the global and the highly particular, ends his panoramic account of a Roman world newly centered on monarchy.  Modern usage makes the fact that the Romans possessed an empire before they had emperors seem counter-intuitive. As a compromise, I capitalize Empire and Imperial when referring specifically to the period from January  , when Augustus was granted this honorific name by the Roman senate. When referring either to the empire of the Republican period and its condition ("imperial"), or to empire spanning the Republican period and the world of emperors, I do not capitalize these terms.